The politics of the 1927 film “Metropolis” are very weird. Not weird in the same way that a movie like “Inception” is often talked about as weird, where it’s sort of difficult to figure out what is going on and what it all means. “Metropolis” goes to great lengths to ensure that the viewer knows exactly what the meaning of the film is, spelling it out in plain text at the very beginning and the very end of the film. The reason “Metropolis” is weird is because of what it believes the systemic problems in capitalism are, and how to resolve them.
“Metropolis” seems to believe that the main problem with capitalism is miscommunication between the upper and lower classes. That if the factory workers and factory owners were merely able to understand the positions of the other, then the problem would be solved. Indeed, the closest thing to an antagonist is the character of Rotwang, and his robot, whose grand evil plan is to sow the seeds of discontent between the upper and lower classes until all of society comes crashing down.
The weird thing about this all is that Jon Fredersen, the factory owner, is not held in any way culpable for the conditions in his factory. He is on the same moral level as those workers in his factory who eventually decided to riot. Fredersen merely needs to come to an understanding with the workers, as mediated by his son. “Fredersen is not a bad person”, the film seems to say. “He has the best of intentions, and just needs to be shown the right path.”
This is an enforcement of the idea that capitalism works and is good, it’s just a few bad apples who have lost their way that are making everyone’s lives miserable. Those in power should remain in power, they just need to learn to be nice. The workers shouldn’t try to organize and fight for their rights or anything, that’d be the same thing as a mob, and they’d just end up blowing up society and killing their own children.
Karl Marx wrote in “The Labour Process and Alienation in Machinery and Science” about how labor was being redirected away from a human effort using tools to a machine effort aided by humans. That which is being produced is no longer the product of the humans working there, but rather that of the machines. Looking at this in a vacuum, it’s easy to see how machines could be considered the bad guys in “Metropolis.” The factory is represented as the Canaanite god Moloch, to whom human sacrifices are fed. However, this is a very shallow interpretation. The problem is not that machines are used in factories. The problem is with the people who own the factories and machines, and who create the conditions in which the workers are injured or killed.
It is easy to understand why the message of “Metropolis” appealed to so many. It is a view of the world in which everyone’s life gets better, but none of the fundamental power relations change at all. It’s just like how things are right now, but better! Things just need to be tweaked a bit, some new policies and regulations implemented, and then everyone will be happy.
This is a way of looking at the world which fails to address why things are the way they are. The existing power relations are what led to the world in which those in the film and those in real life exist. The world cannot change unless those power relations change. The key to the change depicted in the film is not a 3rd party mediator, but rather redistribution of power such that those in the lower classes can argue for their interests on their own terms.
Aidan Tamke Cyberpunk Class 